Get Your Eco-News Groove On Right Here Right Now

Time once again to get down and get funky with the latest word from the front lines of the battle for a better world. Today we’re fueling the debate on gas prices, talking up taxes that are taxing only if you’re taxing earth’s resources; wondering about an EPA that’s MIA; and (batting clean-up) washing our hands of a story on certain soaps that are dirtying up the world. Prepare, dear friends, to be stunned and amazed…

We begin today with preternaturally amusing San Francisco columnist Mark Morford, who in today’s Notes & Errata says that raising gas taxes so prices hit $10 per gallon would be the best thing that ever happened to us. We’ve been feeling plenty of pain at the pump lately (and not just because we hate handing over our hard-earned cash to slimeball oil companies), but we think Morford is essentially correct. If we had to pay serious bucks for gas we’d get serious about conserving it. Quick. That would lead to all kinds of good things like cleaner air, a cooler climate, and congestion-free freeways. And the only Hummers we’d ever see would have wings and an appetite for nectar.

Taxes are also on the mind of WorldWatch guru Lester Brown. In an article in the Globalist that’s been pointed out to us by Environmental Economics, our man Lester presents tales of strange and bizarre alien societies whose clearly insane citizenry have decided to (*gasp*) tax environmental destruction instead of (*shudder*) working people. What is the world coming to? Hopefully, it’s coming to Europe, whose perenially progressive populace is, in fact, gradually shifting the tax burden from ordinary citizens who work for a living to companies who plunder and pillage for theirs. We know what you’re thinking… The only thing that can come from this monstrous experiment are public health, personal wealth, and sustainability for all. The next thing you know, they’ll be talking about charging $10 for a gallon of gas…

Gas is what they’re apparently full of over the EPA, which appears to be thinking about dropping the “E” and the “P” and just going with the initial A. A-ccording to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility , the A has been stealthily focusing on security at the expense of anything resembling actual Environmental Protection. Fearfully trembling agency head Stephen Johnson has just created a new "national security and intelligence” operation at the department and a new top level post for Big Brother, oops we mean Homeland Security, to go along with it even as he abolished the Office of Children’s Health Protection. Much better to be spying on the children than protecting them, we guess. And if you think that’s weird, the B--- (expletive deleted) Administration wants to divert $45 million in EPA public health research funding to a program that would monitor water infrastructure during a terrorist attack. Now instead of studying ecosystem health and toxic pollution, the A will be in charge of posting guards at pumping stations. How suspiciously convenient for all our friends in the chemical industry…

We suppose that with the A all worried about sentries at reservoirs, it’s not going to have much time or money) to concern itself with anything else. Like whether or not the water it’s guarding or the soil around it contains any unhealthy toxins. But really, why worry about new research showing that about 75% of the antibacterial chemical triclocarban that Americans wash down their drains each year survives sewage treatment? Why concern ourselves with such trivia as the 200 tons of the stuff that’s therefore being dumped onto fields and into the environment via sewage sludge each year? Why fret over studies showing that the situation with the related antibacterial triclosan is much the same except that it actually creates toxic chloroform whenever it meets the chlorine in water supplies. C’mon. You’re not a terrorist are you? Look on the bright side dear Citizen. Soon we’ll be able to sanitize ourselves just by sitting on the lawn and taking a quick dip in the local swimming hole.